The World Bled Dry
by ariel2me
Summary: Rhaegar talks about soulmates. Elia is not interested in Rhaegar's justification.


_The only way for him to justify an affair such as theirs had been to see it in spiritual terms. She completes me, he told himself. What I share with her happens on the level of the soul, not just on the level of the body. And how is a man to live a full life if he has no nurture on the level of the soul? He didn't have that with his wife. Their relationship, he decided, was the stuff of the temporal, ordinary world. (A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George)_

* * *

"Did you touch her?'

"Touch her?"

"Did you take her to bed?"

"I … we … we consummated our love, yes."

"How did you consummate this love, pray tell?"

"You are a married woman, Elia. Surely you know how a consummation takes place."

"I know how a _marriage_ is consummated. But after all, a marriage is merely a tedious affair of the ordinary world, is it not? This connection you have with Lyanna Stark is something else altogether, you claim, something more exalted, something that exists on a higher plane of existence. Surely such a love requires a very different kind of consummation than a mere marriage? Surely it requires something more special, something unique and out of the ordinary? So I ask you again, how did you consummate this grand, lofty and elevated love of yours that you claim exists on the spiritual level?"

"With the joining of our souls, to become one, the one and only, that could never be torn asunder."

"Ah … the joining of your _souls_. I see. And how did she end up with child, then? How did your seed end up in her womb, through this union of the souls? Did your seed travel beside your soul, or inside it? Explain to me how it works."

"This is unworthy of you, Elia. It is … it is vulgar and unseemly, for a lady of your noble birth and breeding to speak of such a thing."

"But it is not vulgar and unseemly for you to do such a thing, after disappearing for months and months with nary a single thought for the fate of your wife and children, for the fate of the realm? Other men have strayed from their marriage vows before – you are by no means the first, nor would you be the last, Rhaegar – but most of them managed to stray without completely abandoning all their duties and responsibilities. The straying I might – _might_ – have been able to forgive, in due time, but not the abandonment, and certainly not the danger you have recklessly and thoughtlessly plunged our children into."

* * *

"What about your prophecies? If the point is to beget another child, because I am a failure who could not give you a third, then –"

"I have never called you a failure for that, Elia. I am not the kind of man who would do such a thing to his lady wife. I have seen the terrible damage it did to my mother, and the unbearable sorrow she suffered, after being branded as a failure by my father for her miscarriages and stillbirths."

"No, you have never called me a failure out loud for my childbearing history. You are not the kind of man who would say those things out loud; that much is true. Our good and gracious prince would never stoop to such a level. But you imply it nonetheless, with all your actions and with all the humiliations you have visited upon me. And you brand me as a failure nonetheless, even if it is not done through words. Consider that fact, before you are tempted to congratulate yourself for being a better man than your father."

"I never intended to –"

"Intent neither excuses nor justify all our deeds and misdeeds."

"There must be three! The dragon must have three heads."

"Why must it be _this_ girl? Why must _she_ be the mother of your third child? Explain that to me. This betrothed girl, betrothed to your own cousin, a man from a House that had already been humiliated once before by another Targaryen prince who thought nothing of breaking a betrothal with House Baratheon. Why not a woman who is unspoken for? A widowed woman whose fertility has been proven, who has already given birth safely before, would she not be a more reasonable choice? Why take the risk with Lyanna Stark? Why take the risk of inciting the wrath of the prickly proud Baratheons, for that matter? You knew full well what Lyonel Baratheon did after his daughter was humiliated by your great-uncle Duncan. What did you think Robert Baratheon would do after you humiliated him by stealing his betrothed? Did you think he was going to offer you his sincere felicitation that you have found true love at long last, with the girl he was supposed to wed?"

"It cannot be the child of just _any_ woman. It must be the child of a woman I have a strong and special connection with. A woman who is my –"

"Soulmate?"

"You say that with such contempt, Elia."

"Show me where it says in the books and the parchments you have been studying that the mother of the three heads of the dragon must be your soulmate."

"These matters are rarely explicitly stated. They are implied, in the form of puzzles and riddles that must be solved."

"What about Rhaenys and Aegon, then?"

"What about them?"

"They are the other two heads of the dragon, according to you. The child that girl is carrying will be the third. Is that your contention?"

"You know it is, Elia."

"According to you, I have failed to provide you with succor and nourishment on the spiritual level, and that is why you have to be with this girl. According to you, we do not share the same connection that you share with this girl. According to you, I am not your soulmate, the way this girl is. But that has not prevented Rhaenys and Aegon from being two of the three heads you require."

"Stop calling her a girl!"

"Isn't that what she is, a girl? She was four-and-ten when you first caught a glimpse of her at Harrenhal. And she is not yet six-and-ten now, is she not? She has not yet come of age."

"My mother was wed to my father when she was three-and-ten, and she gave birth to me before her fourteenth name day."

"And your mother suffered numerous miscarriages and stillbirths after that, as did Queen Naerys, who also had her first child at a tender age. Are you telling me that the lesson you have learned from this is that it is a good idea to impregnate a girl of four-and-ten?"

"You are twisting my words, Elia. My words and my intentions."

"You are refusing to contend with the consequences of your words and your intentions, let alone the consequences of your actions."

* * *

"Have you ever thought of what you should give, instead of only what you deserve to receive?"

"What do you mean?"

"I tried my best to build a connection with you. I opened my heart to you, Rhaegar, but there is no way to give, when the other party is not interested in receiving. And there is no way to continue trying to give, when the other party would not reciprocate in the slightest, would not deign to give anything in return. Connection is a two-sided affair, not one."


End file.
